Tattooing is an ancient art, which has been experiencing renewed popularity in recent years. Professional tattoo artists use a tattoo machine whose basic design has remained essentially unchanged for decades. A tattoo machine generally includes a needle tube that receives a needle, which is locked to a frame at a needle retainer. A needle reciprocates within the needle tube, the assembly being powered by armature coils that impart vibratory motion to an armature bar attached to the upper end of the needle. The vibratory motion of the armature bar causes the needle to reciprocate. Tattoo machines generally operate on direct current at voltages between 4V-15V and currents between 250-1000 ma. The necessary voltage may be supplied by a simple step-down wall transformer, or by a regulated power supply, which may either be a constant voltage supply or a variable voltage supply, and may have a foot-operated switch. A power supply cable is used to connect the power supply to the tattoo machine. The tattoo machine has a pair of widely separated contacts, one connected to the armature coils and the other to ground.
The cable connecting the machine is a two-conductor cable. The two wires are insulated from each other, but contained in a common jacket or with their insulating jackets joined together. At the machine end of the cable, the two conductors are separated into a Y-shape and connected to probe bodies that terminate in L-shaped clips. A helical spring is concentrically disposed around the conductors at the Y-junction with the ends of the spring bearing against the ends of the probe bodies. The spring supplies sufficient resilient bias to keep the L-shaped clips in electrical contact with the armature and ground contacts of the tattoo machine.
While this arrangement works, nevertheless, the connector at the machine end of the power supply cable is a little bulky and causes drag on the cord. The spring and L-shaped clips tend to become worn or to break with extensive use. Consequently, there is a need for a better connector for a power supply cable for attaching a power supply to a tattoo machine.
Thus, a clip cord power connector solving the aforementioned problems is desired.